


You are not immune to being in your own bad timeline

by Zoya113



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: A tiny little bit of angst, F/M, M/M, but I wrote this for the jokes tbh, not me including allusions to my friend’s au’s, peip rlly said number one paulkins fan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: PEIP has easy access to knowing what’s going on in alternate dimensions, and it’s easy material to start betting on until they take a look at how much better their lives could be
Relationships: Paul Matthews/ Emma Perkins, Xander Lee/John McNamara
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	You are not immune to being in your own bad timeline

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this will only be funny to me & so I made it a ship fic to fix that

When Mcnamara got the call from Xander to get to his office immediately he thought it was urgent, but when he got there he found nothing but his soldiers gathered around Xander’s computer with their eyes fixated on the screen like they were watching a grand final. 

“What?”

“Shh!” Xander immediately shut him up, not even glancing up. “Come here, come here,” he beckoned him over.

Mcnamara found a place to stand between Schaeffer and Maxon, trying to peer over their shoulders. 

On Xander’s screen there were three windows open, all of them running text at a speed probably too fast them to be keeping up with reliably. “What’s happening?” 

“We’re betting!” Maxon was cheerful to explain. “We’re reading data from alternate universes to see what the other us-es are up to! Cool right?” 

“Ohh, no no- what?” Mcnamara shook his head, “not a good use of alternate reality technology. Really, Xander?” He would’ve thought he’d have a better moral code when it came to spying on his alternate reality self.

“Well Maxon started it,” he was quick to chuckle, and Maxon laughed too. 

“I didn’t know you could do something like this! I said I want to be General one day and Xander said I’m sure in an alternate reality you are and I said well I wanna go visit that alternate me and tell him he’s pretty lit for that but we have to find which reality that is first and there’s like a million of them so we started flicking through them randomly just to see, and then the colonel came in and she said she bet she’d be General before me and-“

“Neither of them have made any money on that yet,” Xander interrupted. “We dropped that pretty quickly, anyways. Right now we’re betting on who’s going to live the longest.” 

“Twenty bucks is on Maxon,” Schaeffer chimed in. “Oh look-“ she smacked her hands down on the table and backed up a step. “I just died, fifty two. Shot in the head by an infected host,” she scoffed. “It’s because I fell off that cliff when I was thirty and broke my hip.”

“I’m still doing just fine!” Maxon added. “Although I don’t know if I’m in PEIP in this reality which is whack so maybe I’ll be around for ages.” 

“Oh, I just died in a car crash,” Xander sucked in a breath of air with a nonplussed look. “Way to go, Xander! Only twenty nine, as well.”

“I win!” Maxon cheered.

“No, that’s a bad thing,” Schaeffer reiterated. “Your money was on Xander, mine was on you. Now pay up.”

Mcnamara couldn’t help but wonder what Schaeffer even intended to do with any of her winnings considering she had nothing to spend them on. Maybe she was just being mean.

“Betting over each other’s deaths isn’t going to be fun forever you know,” Mcnamara tried to argue. He had heard of this sort of thing happening before around the facility and it never ended well. 

“I beg to differ, John,” Xander clicked his tongue. “In one universe you were a musician.”

“You’re looking at other versions of me?” He didn’t like that. He didn’t know what the other versions of him were up to, but he sure hoped they were behaving. 

“Alright. First person to kill someone,” Schaeffer diverted their attention back to the screen. “And I want universe A-12-X this time around.” 

“I’m serious, it isn’t all fun and games.”

“It’s literally fun and games,” Maxon corrected him honestly, holding up the paper he had been keeping track of the bets on. 

“My money is on myself,” Schaeffer added.

“You can’t vote for yourself!” Xander smacked a hand to her shoulder. “I’m voting for you, you have to vote for someone else.”

“You just made up that rule just then.”

The two stopped bickering when they realised they had to keep an eye on the fast moving screen. 

“Got it!” Schaeffer thumped a hand down on the table seconds in with a triumphant laugh. “Age sixteen, throttled my father, I win.”

“No,” Maxon gasped, giving her a shocked look. “That isn’t the same.”

“We meant PEIP, Schaeffer, not committing murder!” Xander added.

“No I chose this round and I just said first to kill someone!” 

“Murder and killing are two different things!” Xander tried to debate.

Maxon scoffed and crossed his arms, scribbling down notes for each round they started. “Well we didn’t know you chose a villain reality!” 

Xander agreed with a nod of his head up and down. “Apparently you’re just evil in that dimension. Look,” he hadn’t paused the feed, and leaned over to check her side of the screen. “Age twenty three, you started a fist fight with a fifteen year old!”

“Evil or not I still won didn’t I!?” She snapped. “Choose another reality then!”

He leant up against the wall, watching them sternly for a second as they played their game, watching incredibly intently as the data was fed back to Xander’s laptop. 

“I wanna bet on who get’s married first,” Xander chose this time. 

“Unfair!” Maxon and Schaeffer snapped in unison. “Oh-“ Maxon paused, checking his still running feed. “I just got hit by a car, so, never mind.” 

Mcnamara shook his head. “Just make sure you get your work done today, don’t spend all afternoon with that thing! It won’t be fun forever.” 

“Well, who else are we supposed to watch?” Schaeffer asked.

“It’s boring if you aren’t looking at yourself! It just doesn’t hit the same. Totally different vibe.“

“I think that’s spying if you aren’t watching yourselves,” Xander nodded, pausing the data to look up at Mcnamara. “Why do you look so anxious? It’s fine right?”

“We are spies,” he reminded them. “We do go undercover. You all know that,” he waited for them all to confirm it. 

“Yeah, but usually we spy on evil people,” Xander raised a brow, frowning. “We don’t want to intrude on anyone.” 

“It’s just text data.” He just didn’t want his friends going crazy over words on a screen. “Those are real lives in time you’re looking at. You might see a lot of bad things.” 

They all looked up at him, and none of them said a word. The were all waiting for someone else to speak. 

“In one universe, I was in the Oval Office,” Schaeffer said, totally missing the point. “That was pretty fun to see.”

He stared at her, she stared back. 

“I wasn’t jealous. It’s just because I got therapy at sixteen,” she added. 

“Just don’t spend all day on that.” With that he crossed his arms to head back to his office. 

He didn’t want to play their betting game. Matter of fact he didn’t recommend any sort of betting. At least money was pretty unimportant around here where food and shelter were free. No one was technically losing anything, but he knew what they might see could scare them. 

Maxon got in a bad way when he was upset, Schaeffer had violent tendencies and well, his Xander was anxious enough as it is most of the time without having to watch himself die. 

He knew he would have to listen to Xander recount the funniest stories at the end of the day and he didn’t mind that, but he just had to focus on his work now, so there wasn’t time to worry.

Xander’s office was right across from his though, and occasionally he did hear loud cheers or scowls and the occasional threat, but he didn’t let it distract him. 

What was less easy to block out was each and every time Xander’s door opened. He couldn’t help but think that would be it- his friend’s days would be ruined and they would be hurrying off to go cause property damage as a coping mechanism because they had seen something they didn’t like.

“Look both ways before you cross, Major!” He heard Schaeffer call out at one point with a laugh as Maxon left to go run a couple of tasks. 

He huffed to himself, rolling his eyes. He was happy they were having fun! It seemed even Schaeffer and Maxon weren’t getting along too poorly for a change, but that wasn’t going to last forever. 

It continued for hours matter of fact, funny little comments shared between the three whenever they had business to attend to. Stuff like ‘remember your helmet this time!’ And ‘I’ll keep an eye on the oven for you!’ And it would’ve been sort of funny out of context if he wasn’t worried about them.

“Hey, General!” Maxon just about kicked the door down, barging into his office with a huge smile on his face. “Guess what!”

“What, soldier?” He would’ve preferred to hear it from Xander in bed at the end of the day than in the middle of his work, especially now that he was in a bad mood.

“D’you know I just found one reality where we’re distantly related?” 

“Wow, isn’t that crazy?” He nodded. 

“Or well you know everyone with blue eyes is distantly related already one way or another, you know that right? Isn’t that kinda weird?” He hovered there for a few moments before remembering what he was in the process of doing. “Oh yeah! We just found this universe where Xander-“

“Perhaps you should get back to it, soldier,” he didn’t want to know. “I’m just in the middle of something.”

“Oh, okay!” He grinned before taking off. 

Looking into other realities - the idea scared him. Sure some of them were vastly different, in one reality he could be a chef or in another he could be a serial killer, but the ones that really scared him where the ones that weren’t. Ones where he only ever made one wrong decision.

Perhaps in one reality he was a step too slow to saving a friend, or in another perhaps he realised something was off with the portal earlier and he could’ve saved Wilbur Cross. Or perhaps, and the scariest possibility, there was a word out there where something as simple as buying a coffee or going to the wrong school could’ve lead him to never meeting Xander. 

What if they hadn’t been in the same room that day, or what if one of them never was accepted into PEIP? Such small changes held so much power.

“You’re telling me I could’ve been a cowboy!?” Came one particularly loud shout at one point from the colonel, crashing his train of thought.

This was where the fun was starting to stop, the first step of realising they were not intact living their best lives, and that there were better realities out there. The idea that there were versions of themselves doing better than them is what he was worried about most. 

The second step was when they found versions of themselves doing worse things, and the data feed didn’t record the consequences. At one point, Maxon stormed into his office just to glare at him. 

“What, is everything alright soldier?” 

“Negative!” He growled. “You stabbed me!” 

He supposed they had been staring at it for so long they were starting to stop differentiating. 

“No, I didn’t stab you, another reality me stabbed another reality you,” he reminded him. 

“Well I technically stabbed you first this time but I don’t think it was very nice of you to retaliate!” He added, “oh, and also,” he paused in the doorway. “Xander says thanks a lot for letting all of your crops die.”

Mcnamara forced a laugh as Maxon headed back, rather uncomfortable with that. 

How long had it been now? About four hours? At least it had been a while since he had heard any more shouts.

He assumed the game now was more about seeing what could’ve been. The dangerous part. 

They probably would’ve pulled up chairs now, dropped the betting, they were just choosing a universe at random most likely to find something to make them feel better about themselves. 

It was Schaeffer who stormed out first, and now he was quite concerned about anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path on her way. 

It was another half hour before Maxon left, storming the other way towards his dorm with a loud and distressed grumble. 

He didn’t want to intervene right away, he had warned them, so maybe he should just keep in his own lane. To upset the both of them they must’ve seen some pretty sour things. 

Oh he hoped that Xander wasn’t still scanning through all those realities. 

What had he said? Why didn’t they believe them when he said it was a dangerous game to play? Sometimes soldiers have to learn lessons the right way. It went a long way in the ideology that small differences can change a lot, just as he was sure they had learnt in their silly game. If they had listened to him or decided not to play all together then they would still be in a good mood. 

“Butterfly effect,” he said to himself just to clear his head by summarising his thoughts. “It’s the butterfly effect,” he’d probably have to educate them on that later. “Even the smallest decisions can change their lives.”

He looked down to his papers, then back up at his office window, staring at the door across the hall. 

Even the smallest decisions. 

The fact this could be a bad timeline, he wasn’t immune to misfortune just because he hadn’t seen it, and he wasn’t immune just because his story wasn’t running at a fifty words a second. Not approaching Xander when he could be upset could be the first step to a very long and slow downfall of what was most precious to him. 

He knocked on the door twice with his knuckles, slowly opening it and stepping inside. “Zee?”

“Hey, John,” he glanced up with a half smile, eyes still flicking through the data on his screen. 

There was some relief in knowing he hadn’t seen anything bad enough to make him quit. 

“So,” he said.

“So?” 

“Uh, how’d it go? Your game. Make any big money?”

Xander shrugged. “Well I didn’t lose any.” 

Usually their conversations flowed a little easier than this. Maybe this was the wrong decision, maybe he should’ve stayed in his office. 

“Maybe the other two should’ve listened to you.” 

He nodded, the situation didn’t call for an ‘I told you so’ but he knew they both knew.  
“What was it that got them?” 

“Oh well poor Maxon- he saw a lot of fucked up shit, and I mean a lot, but it was actually a universe where Disney bought out vocaloid and westernised it.” 

“Ohhhh,” Mcnamara bit down on his tongue. Maxon did not like people messing with what made him happy. 

“And Schaeffer?” 

Xander breathed in a breath of air, wondering if he had the leeway to speak.  
“Well, I think we all saw some pretty messed up things, unfortunately. Do you remember the colonel’s old friend?” 

He nodded, and it was easy to tell which one he was talking about because the colonel never had many.

“Well, turns out she’s alive more often than she’s dead,” Xander scratched his throat as he announced that. “Small decisions, huh? Leave your gun behind or don’t put on your visor tight enough, and then suddenly you’re in the bad timeline.” 

He let those words sink in, stealing a glance at Xander while he wasn’t looking. Slowly, he made his way over to one of the chairs that had been pulled up but left behind, taking one of Xander’s hands in his. 

“You didn’t see anything bad?” He asked instead. 

“Uh, I did,” he answered a little shakily. “But it’s fine, it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t us.”

Mcnamara nodded, not wanting to really look at the screens of running text himself. 

“Hey, can you excuse me?” Xander spoke up after a moment of silence. “I just need a moment to think.”

Mcnamara nodded, seeing himself out.

Oh this is why he didn’t mess around with realities! Now he was going to have to think about the butterfly effect all day, and that meant he had to go sort out his friends. He did not want to make a bad decision. 

Except it wasn’t about a timeline or a butterfly effect or any alternate reality, it was just about John keeping Xander, and the rest of his friends happy. That was it.

He knew Schaeffer would be in the gym because she wasn’t really allowed to go around punching people or go out on missions where she was particularly angry. 

“Colonel.” He was sort of concerned for the punching bag she was beating the shit out of. 

“Come to say I told you so huh?” She spared him a glance. “I don’t appreciate that.” 

“No, no,” he shrugged, grabbing a seat on the bench to let her finish a round before even attempting to speak. “I’ve got an idea, to cheer you up.” 

“Well I’m not upset,” she answered. 

He was sceptical about that. “Well, I’d like to invite you to something then, another game.” 

“I think I’ve had enough of that game now,” she shook her head. “I thought you were above that, General.”

“It’s a new game, Schaeffer. Maybe you should just give it a try. It’d be nice to laugh wouldn’t it?” 

“I really hope you’re giving me permission to terrorise cadets, because that’s all I’m in the mood for. I don’t want to play.” 

“Welp.” He clapped her on the back. “I’m pulling the General card.”

“Oh I hate that card,” she huffed, rubbing her forehead but picking up her sports bag to sling over her shoulder. “This better be quick.” 

“Well we have to go grab the Major, too,” he said, bringing her along for the trip. 

She trailed behind him silently with her arms crossed, giving him time to panic over the idea he was stirring up. 

“Major?” Maxon was in his dorm on his own, his headphones in but his music playing so loud that Mcnamara could hear it from the door. “Major,” he said a little louder to get his attention. 

“General!” He gasped, standing at attention and almost hitting his head on the bunk above his as he yanked his headphones out. “Yes?”

“I’ve got a game for you to play that’s more fun than last time.”

“That’s what he’s saying anyways,” Schaeffer grunted, a little too despondent to be bothered by the major and they seemed to be on good terms today.

“I‘m feeling a bit tired today, General,” Maxon frowned. “Will it be long? I still have jobs to do.”

Mcnamara couldn’t answer, he didn’t know. 

“If you come I’ll let you tell me about why that westernising thing was so bad,” Schaeffer offered because she was not in the mood at all to wait. 

“Oh, really?” He stood up, barely making it to the door before he begun his explanation but his voice didn’t carry the same tone as it usually did. 

Walking back through the halls he lead them to Xander’s office again, knocking quite firmly to show he was here for business this time around. 

“Xander, move aside,” he snatched up one of the seats before Xander even had time to process their arrival in his dark office, grabbing his keyboard to start typing away.

“John, what’re you doing?” Xander didn’t usually like people taking his tech off him. 

“I’ve got a new game,” he announced, still getting the hang of how this would work. “You said watching anyone but yourselves would be boring - but I think I’ve got a much better idea.”

“I don’t really want to watch myself anymore,” Xander patted him on the back. “Maybe we can play another time?” 

“No, well we aren’t betting on ourselves,” he said as he selected four tabs at random. “We’re betting on love.” 

“Uh,” Schaeffer took a step back to excuse herself from the situation. “Well that’s just unfair.”

“What screen do you want, colonel? First pick.”

“Three,” she answered doubtfully. 

“Maxon?”

“Four?” 

“Xander?”

“I don’t like where this is going,” he answered first. “One.”

“Alright, two is mine then.” He rubbed his hands together. “May I present to you,” he begun, “the lives of Paul Matthews and Emma Perkins.”

“Those two?” Xander gave him a surprised look. 

“Think of it less like a casino this time and more like horse racing. I bet that they’ll get together first on my screen,” he said confidently only to show them they could have fun with it.

“I don’t believe it,” Schaeffer leant up against the desk as Maxon took the other seat. “It’s a miracle that man has ever had the courage to ask Emma out in any reality let alone - that many,” she waved a hand to gesture. “I have things to do.”

“That doesn’t sound like winners talk to me, Schaeffer,” he clicked on the tabs, and the data started to run. Out of instinct they all seemed to zone back in to watch. 

“Hah,” Maxon was the first to laugh. “Can I bet on my own game again?” He asked. “They’re childhood friends here.”

“Oh, that’s no fair. I’m betting on Maxon you can’t bet on yourself we established that,” Schaeffer argued. 

“Well, new rules! You can bet on whoever you like,” Mcnamara ordered. This wouldn’t be like the other game, it would be fun and harmless and most importantly not affect any of them at all. 

“I’ll bet on Schaeffer then,” Xander shrugged, because no one was betting on Schaeffer.

“Well shitty decision, he just spilt coffee all over her when she was flirting with him,” Schaeffer scoffed. “Money down the drain.”

“Oh- hey,” Xander interrupted their focus. “They’ve just had their first kiss.” This didn’t seem to have the same charm as the first game to Xander just yet. 

“Oh well that was too fast, Xander wins, let’s play a different one it wasn’t proper.” Maxon leant right over Xander’s shoulder to smack the button before anyone else could confirm a second round. “And I’ll win this time!”

“We’ll see about that, Maxon,” Mcnamara taunted just to lighten the mood when he could tell his other colleagues weren’t quite in a good way yet. “I’ll bet on myself, and to heighten the stakes, I’ll bet a week of canteen clean up that Perkins will make the first mov-oh shit-“ he really hoped it didn’t count if he didn’t finish the sentence.

“What?” Schaeffer nudged him, ever a stickler for sticking to the rules. “You gonna finish that sentence?”

He let out an anxious laugh. “It’s only funny on text, I shouldn’t be laughing. But I don’t know if they’ll be getting together.”

“What?” Xander glanced over, and Maxon leant across the desk to try and see his side of the screen.

Mcnamara dipped his head into his hands as he laughed to try and cover it. “It’s not funny, it’s very tragic, I shouldn’t laugh.” Now he got what had them so entranced, there were no consequences when it was all text on screens. “Paul just hit Jane with his car in this one- it’s not funny.”

“It’s not,” said Schaeffer, but she had turned her head away from the screen and he could see her shoulders hunched up. “It’s not-“ she snorted into her hand. “Stop it John, get it off the screen.” She removed her hand from her mouth to punch him lightly in warning. “It’s not funny, delete it!”

He left the tab open though, a little more free to laugh himself now that she was in better spirits. “Oh Emma isn’t going to be happy to hear that.” 

“Well it’s a little funny,” Maxon answered honestly. “In an ironic way, of course,” even a small chuckle came from his mouth.

Xander closed the tab. “Let’s not look at that one. I don’t think you’re winning.” 

“Winning nothing but a weeks worth of kitchen cleanup,” Schaeffer teased. “Put it back up, you don’t get to back out because it started badly!”

“Ah you’re just saying that because they haven’t even met in your world yet,” he rolled his eyes, quite aware Xander was still quiet. “Here, let’s clear the board. Whoever gets married first wins, and whoever loses has to volunteer on the cadet biv.”

“You’re a madman, John,” Xander sighed as he started up a new round of randomised realities. “But I am betting they’ll get married in my world first.”

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if they didn’t though?” Maxon suggested. “Like wouldn’t it be wild if I won instead?” He jeered, the flashing of the screen reflecting off his signature shades. 

“We probably shouldn’t sit in the dark you know,” Schaeffer eventually announced. “It’s bad for your eyes.” 

“Go turn the lights on then,” Maxon said. 

“You.”

Neither of them did, they were both still watching the screen. They weren’t able to look away for a second. 

No one got up to turn them on until Xander walked away from the screen, letting his data run unsupervised.

Mcnamara watched him walk over to the switches, it seemed the other two barely even noticed they were so absorbed. 

“Oh Paul you fucking idiot,” Schaeffer growled. “The dumbass, ‘too scared’ to ask her out. Scared of what! She loves you back!” It was very much like screaming at a horror movie, Paul couldn’t hear her obviously.

Xander sat back down in his chair, rubbing his eyes first before staring at the screen again. 

“Ohh they’re going on their first date!” Maxon was cooing at his own screen. “They’re sharing their favourite songs!”

Mcnamara was a little more concentrated on trying to sense Xander’s mood. 

“Oh come on,” Schaeffer leant in, and it was very clear she was starting to obscure Xander’s view but he didn’t make a big deal of it. This was not the way he had been playing before. 

“They’re having a snow day,” Maxon held a hand to his heart. “Guys- please look! They are building a fireplace in the back yard!” He thumped his hand on the table to enunciate each word. “And they are sharing a blanket!” 

“You’re distracting me!” Schaeffer barked, probably because she was barely keeping up with the text as it was. “Ah shit!” She smacked her hands down. “Why does this man do nothing but spill his coffee!? If I was Emma I’d just break up!”

“Guys, please stop hitting the table this computer was expensive,” Xander warned.

Mcnamara, who was on Schaeffer’s side of the table waved a hand to ward her back from hitting things as to not upset Xander further. 

“Why- why does Paul have such bad luck? Why did this man just ruin everything? What does Emma mean it’s ‘charming’ when he knocks his head on the doorway? He’s too tall.”

“They’re adopting a dog, it’s so sweet, but I just really want someone to propose,” the sweetness of it was losing its charm when Maxon was not winning.

“There we go, marriage,” Xander told the group only in the form of a report, there didn’t seem to be any enthusiasm behind it. This was the first he had spoken all round, he hadn’t even updated them when they started dating.

“Oh, thirty eight!” Maxon buzzed in seconds later. “They’re married!”

“Ugh! He dropped the fucking engagement ring! This is some sort of sick joke!” Schaeffer leaned into the screen a bit more like that would help speed things up. “Oh! There we go!”

“No an engagement doesn’t count, colonel,” but it was no use arguing because at the speed the text was running they were wedded several seconds later. 

“Well! Big talk from the man on cleaning duty and cadet bivs,” Schaeffer clapped her hands, rubbing them together. “Play another round and double it.”

“Uh, no, we aren’t doubling it-“ the point of this was that no one gets hurt! “We aren’t-“

“Coward’s way out but affirmative, I’ll mind my own business.” She crosses one leg over the other where she was half seated on the side of the table. “I want to bet on who’ll make the first move.”

“Oh it’s going to be Emma. When has Paul ever made the first move?” Maxon sighed, having clearly learnt a few lessons from watching their lives play out a few times. 

They played long past the game lost its charm for its second time, constantly intrigued by each of the possibilities that could arise and always spurred on by the occasional discovery of a reality entirely unlike their own. There were worlds they met as children and worlds where they didn’t meet until they were old. There were times Paul worked at Beanies and Emma worked at CCRP, and sometimes worlds even stranger than the normal, more like the things Mcnamara would see out on missions.

Sometimes, alternate reality tech was dangerous because it allowed you to see worlds you shouldn’t have- other times it was dangerous because it was highly addictive as they all had seemed to learn the hard way. 

Sure it lots it’s charm when Paul stammered when proposing for the tenth time, but then they’d start a new word and Paul was a seer and all of his friends were equally strange. Things like that could wind them up for another hour or so.

“Okay. I’ve got to go,” Schaeffer stood up from her spot on the desk. “I am doing my neck in and when that happened to my other reality self in reality X-Y whatever I did not see oncoming traffic so lesson learnt.” She raised her hand up to signal she was off before heading out.

“Oh, it’s seven PM!” Maxon was broken from his trance as light from the hallways flooded in. “I have to go run a course!” He hopped up, taking off. “Thank you, General! That was super cool!” 

“Well, they’re looking a little better off,” Xander noted, offering him a smile.

Xander didn’t look much better off though. 

“Is something wrong?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing dear. I’m just a little tired after today, that’s all. You do see a lot of strange things when you go looking through other realities.” He massages his temple, about to switch off his computer when Mcnamara grabbed his hand. 

“I want to try just one more thing,” he offered, really hoping this was going to work. 

“Oh, uh, okay,” he was hesitant but trusting in tone as he shuffled his chair back so Mcnamara could see the screen better. 

Cautiously, he opened up a handful of tabs, watching them carefully so he could stop them at the right moment before they ran too far. 

Xander looked up, watching the still screens instead of the ones that were still running. And as he read through them he realised what they were all there for. 

“What’s this?” He asked. 

Mcnamara licked his lips as he proposed a sentence to his brain. “Paul and Emma were together in about every universe.” Now there was nothing scientific about soul mates, but they seemed to be living proof they could find each other again and again and again. “Look, Zee,” he was just as relieved to show him exactly what he had hoped to find. “In every universe I’ve been through, we’ve found each other.”

Xander dipped his head down though, starting to tap his foot. A slight smile tugging at his lips. He managed to chuckle despite clearly not being in the brightest mood. 

“Look, in this universe we were farmers,” he started. 

“We were a few times, from what I saw this afternoon. You killed our crops once time, by the way.” 

The idea that Xander was his in every world washed him in a heavy sort of relief. It made him realise just how big the universe was, and that things change and bad things happen, a lot, but Xander was always his. He leant into his side for a second before coming back to let out a chuckle at the farmer statement. 

“Well I’ll make better crop decisions next time,” he simply said. 

“I know it’s a dangerous tool, but we still had fun with it,” Xander eventually told him. “It was interesting to see how different things could be. Maxon got into graphic design a lot, Schaeffer was a PT for a while. It’s funny to think we’re all the same, really.” 

“I love you,” Mcnamara told him. “For as many alternate realities there are I’ll always love you.” 

“There’s an infinite amount,” Xander provided him with the answer like he couldn’t help himself with that fact. 

“Exactly,” he grinned when Xander finally began to smile. He took his hand, holding it tightly as the other finally turned off the computer that had clearly been overheating for quite a while. That was quite enough of that. 

“Thanks, John. I love you too.”

“Now, I better go,” he stood up in a hurry. “Since I got myself on kitchen cleanup,” he rolled his eyes and it made Xander laugh. “I’ll see you later tonight?”

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded, one hand rubbing over his eyes before giving him that warm smile. “Love you.”

Mcnamara was certain as he left, that this was one of many of his good timelines.

**Author's Note:**

> Some vague references can be implied to other aus for the kicks but I was thinking abt these ones in particular !  
> •Schaeffer cowboy au between razussy & I  
> •hfmcau ft a work in progress lmao w letmepukeinyourmouthem_  
> •the spyverse from my au book collection & also my Aladdin au I forgot to post bonk   
> • there’s a lot of childhood friend aus but I was thinking love goes both ways by ourfandomcrazyuniverse and some earlier works by robertstanion


End file.
